


we're nothing but animals licking their wounds

by keyshrine



Series: you inspired me [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, carter only appears briefly sorry!!, only a lil bit tho!!, post-red kryptonite, spoilers for 1x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:06:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyshrine/pseuds/keyshrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I'm—sorry,” Supergirl says again, brokenly, her voice a whisper. She reaches out for Cat.</p>
<p>Cat flinches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're nothing but animals licking their wounds

**Author's Note:**

> blaaaaaaah i hate EVERYTHING about this but i'm super excited for the next episode and i wanted to get that excitement out in some form and this is the form it took basically
> 
> i almost made this separate from the series into a whole platonic Super Friends thing but then they ended up kissing so ??? better luck next time
> 
> please let cat grant be ok 2k16

Supergirl throws her over the edge of a building.

Her building, more specifically.

Even more specifically, her balcony.

(She falls and falls and falls and falls and, yes, she screams the entire way down and, yes, she cries at the end of it when she's caught by someone and lowered gently back onto the ground—all she knows about that someone is that they are of startlingly male appearance and startlingly green and startlingly alien. He stands stoically at her side afterwards, and then gives an awkward pat to her shoulder that she most certainly did not ask for, and then she is taken to the hospital for—what, she doesn't know. She's unharmed. Shock, they say, but isn't shock supposed to be more – _shock_ and less crying?)

On the way to the hospital, she thinks about how Supergirl looks far better in blues and yellows and reds instead of in black, and she hadn't thought that possible because she still maintains the opinion that Supergirl looks like a color wheel vomited on her. But then again – black looks wrong. Black looks...

Well. She'd known that, felt it right before Supergirl grabbed her and flung her over the edge of the balcony like she was a ragdoll – easy to pick up, easy to throw, easy to break.

The wrongness had been very obvious and yet she had decided to ignore it. Maybe Supergirl was just having an _off day._ Despite the red in her eyes and the cruelty in her voice, that darkness that – and Cat would admit it, but only to herself – terrified the hell out of her.

She does not like hospitals. This has been made clear. She does not like them and she has not been in one since she was pregnant with Carter and she's determined never to be in one again after this. Everything is too white and too...annoying.

(Carter calls it _hospital-y,_ but unlike her son, she refuses to make adjectives out of nouns.)

The nurses are annoying. The nurses are annoying, the doctors are annoying, the sheets are annoying and the hospital gowns are scratchy and irritating and she looks awful in them.

Everyone looks awful in them.

She's treated for shock, and then she ignores the doctor's orders to stay overnight, just in case, because there is absolutely no reason for her to do that; for the millionth time that day, she thinks _I hate doctors,_ and then she goes home, and takes Carter – who doesn't leave her side once except to get snacks for them both from the vending machine (she has a personal self-rule that she will never eat anything from a vending machine, but she breaks it once or twice or three times for Carter, who is irrevocably fond of horrible vending machine food) – with her.

“Why would Supergirl do that?” he asks, softly, when they're curled up on the couch together watching Netflix later in the evening, and he sounds hurt. It sounds like her own soul speaking; all of that hurt buried away deep inside of her emerging in the form of her son and her son's voice, his dreams crushed. Cat sighs softly and pauses the movie they're watching, turning to look at him.

He stares at the TV only, looking small and vulnerable.

Even as Cat moves to take his hand, she thinks inwardly that, when Supergirl returns, the _real_ Supergirl, not that impostor who tossed her off a building, she's going to yell at her for at least an hour for doing this to Carter.

For doing this at all.

(For doing this to _her._ )

“I don't know,” she says, “But I am sure she had a reason.”

“For throwing you off a roof?” Her son sounds highly skeptical.

“It wasn't her. I know that. And if it was, then – well, something must have been...” She trails off, realizing that she has no idea what to say at all. He squeezes her hand.

“You mean like Bizarro?”

She doesn't mean that at all, actually. That was Supergirl, through and through. It was her absolutely – except it wasn't, at the same time, and her head hurt even thinking about it because she didn't _understand,_ and she didn't like things that she didn't understand. “Maybe,” Cat tells him vaguely, and presses a light kiss to the top of his head.

“I hope it wasn't really her,” Carter says, and Cat's heart aches.

“I hope so too, sweetheart.”

  
—  
  


She doesn't see Supergirl again until the next evening, and she is stupidly relieved to see that black, skin-tight suit gone, replaced with what she knows is entirely Supergirl—red and blue. Her eyes are clear, but tired and sad, and –

Cat punches her in the shoulder. Hard. As hard as she possibly can, which would probably hurt a normal human being for a few moments, but to Supergirl, is entirely ineffective and makes her feel somewhat – well, stupid, actually.

And yet it's ridiculously satisfying at the same time.

“What do you think you were doing?” she says lowly, advancing on Supergirl, pleased to have the upper hand back—the _other_ Supergirl would never allow herself to be backed up against the balcony wall by anyone. She knows that much. (She'd tried, during the confrontation, and failed miserably.)

“I—“

“No. Be quiet.” Supergirl's mouth shuts with an audible click of teeth against teeth. “I am _human._ You do realize what that means, yes? _It means that I can't survive a fall off of a building!_ What were you _thinking?_ Did you want me to die? Was that it? What happened to you to make you want to _kill_ me? I do _not_ appreciate being thrown off of buildings by people who—“ Her voice breaks, and it surprises her somewhat, but she continues on relentlessly, shoving both hands at Supergirl's chest futilely. A part of her hopes that the hero will lose her balance and topple over the balcony just to know how it feels but – of course, she doesn't. She remains perfectly still, an immobile alien rock, and even if she didn't, she'd just be able to fly right back up again and knowing that is _infuriating._ “Who are my friends.”

Friends isn't quite the right word. They aren't friends. They're – more, and yet the word still seems most appropriate in this moment, because saying 'I don't appreciate being thrown off of buildings by people who I've had sex with multiple times' doesn't sound quite as effective.

Supergirl swallows in the ensuing silence, staring down at Cat speechlessly, and Cat _hates_ it. She wants the stupid girl to _say something,_ not just stand there idiotically.

Cat realizes, in almost the same moment, that she's revealed herself as vulnerable and _affected_ by Supergirl's actions and...she is, of course, but she hadn't wanted to make it so clearly obvious.

“I'm sorry,” Supergirl whispers. And, usually, those words would be enough to anger Cat into another ranting session, but the apology is so heartfelt and full of an agonizing sorrow that leaks through, seeping into Supergirl's voice. And her tone soaks it up like a sponge and lets it right back out until Cat has no choice but to realize that the other woman is precisely as emotionally wounded by all of this as she is. “I'm sorry,” she says again, and then again like Cat hadn't heard it the first time.

Cat swallows and wishes afterwards that it hadn't been so loud. “That's all? You're _sorry?_ You aren't going to offer an actual explanation?” She cocks a hip, waiting, keeping herself planted there firmly so that Supergirl has no choice but to stay pressed up against the wall unless she wants to push past Cat, and they both know she's not going to do _that._

“Red Kryptonite.”

Cat blinks. Two words that, paired together, mean absolutely nothing to her. Fantastic. “What?”

Supergirl looks away, but not quickly enough for Cat to miss the sheen of tears in her eyes. “It is called Red Kryponite; it...affects Kryptonians, but not like the green Kryptonite does. It makes you—“ She pauses, grasping for words that aren't there and don't form.

“Oh,” Cat says. There is really nothing more to be said on the matter. She doesn't need a further explanation after all—she understands, now, that red gleam in Supergirl's eyes, the attack, the careless malice in her voice and on her face when she lifted Cat up, easily, and threw her.

“I'm—sorry,” Supergirl says again, brokenly, her voice a whisper. She reaches out for Cat.

Cat flinches.

The silence between them speaks volumes. Cat exhales sharply, curses herself inwardly for flinching in the first place and, judging solely by the regretful kicked puppy look on Supergirl's face, the hero is doing the very same thing, but for a very different reason.

Cat rolls her eyes and, putting aside the instinct to keep herself away from Supergirl just in case that 'Red Kryponite' has unfortunate side effects, she decides to do the reaching this time, closing her fingers around Supergirl's wrist. A pulse flutters rapidly, nervously, against her fingertips.

“Is the matter dealt with, then?”

Supergirl nods, still not looking at her; she stares at the ground between them instead, or maybe at Cat''s shoes; anywhere but her face.

“Good. So I can kiss you without being dropped over the balcony?”

The biting tone of her voice has the only-somewhat-intended effect; Supergirl inhales sharply like she's been wounded, her free hand used to lean back on the wall, away from Cat. “Yes.”

“Wonderful,” Cat says, and kisses her.

There's one problem; Supergirl doesn't kiss back. Eyes upturned in an exasperated roll, she stops, sighs against the Kryptonian's mouth, “You do remember how this all works, don't you? I kiss you, you kiss back. There has to be mutual effort or otherwise it's just awkward, and I do not _do_ awkward.”

Supergirl's eyes flutter shut for a moment, and then she opens them and leans in, lips brushing softly against Cat's, like any amount of pressure applied will crush Cat's skull, which is sufficiently ridiculous, seeing as they've kissed plenty of times before and nothing of the sort has ever happened.

Cat pushes into it, kisses her harder, and then again, and again, and again, until there's nothing left but that, and it feels a little like starting all over again from the very beginning.

Cat is fine with that. It is better than not starting over again at all.

**Author's Note:**

> cat after all of this: "ok but who the fuck saved me who the fuck was that what the fuck is going on"


End file.
